How is this script different from mbemon ( http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10998 )? Based on the descriptions, mbemon seems more robust and includes pretty good logging. mbemon seems to run alright on R5E50 or am I missing something? I'm just confused about the difference.

I've got a crontab file! I've got /etc/crontab and it's got text in it. Why doesn't that text show up with the crontab -l and -e commands?

crontab -l is going to show you the crontab entries for the current userid.i.e. "root".

/etc/crontab is the "system crontab". I've never dealt with that directly.

Oh, man! So, there are multiple crontabs to keep track of??? I'm slowly seeing the big picture take shape - one bit of information at a time. Up to now, I've been putting every cron job into the /etc/crontab file.

In my mind, this babysitting script is a good thing for the system crontab to do, since it is necessary for the system to stay functional.

/etc/crontab is the "system crontab". I've never dealt with that directly.

Yes, multiple crontabs. A system one and a private one for every user. One difference to be aware of is that the system one require a username in column six, and the command in column 7 and beyond, but the user ones do not allow that and the command starts in column 6.

Code:

root@black2:~# crontab -l*/5 * * * * /usr/local/bin/rrd_all.shroot@black2:~# more /etc/crontab# /etc/crontab: system-wide crontab# Unlike any other crontab you don't have to run the `crontab'# command to install the new version when you edit this file# and files in /etc/cron.d. These files also have username fields,# that none of the other crontabs do.

I've seen at least a couple people get confused and bitten by this in the last several weeks.

Thanks tjc,
Do you know where this thing came from? Has it been in Linux from the beginning? I used to do lots of Unix work (AIX), and never encountered this thing. Maybe it was there and I never knew it! No matter how much you think you know, there's always something.
Are there general guidelines as to when you use one vs. the other?
Along that line, should something like this job (or my babysit_commflag.sh) be run as mythtv instead of root?

Do you know where this thing came from? Has it been in Linux from the beginning?

I think it's been around for a long time. Maybe a Vixie cron thing? AIX is a really odd mix. It's the only Unix family OS I'm aware of where admins still regularly add stuff to /etc/inittab rather than putting a script in /etc/init.d and symlinks in the /etc/rc*.d directories.

thornsoft wrote:

Are there general guidelines as to when you use one vs. the other?

About what you'd expect. You only want really fundamental mechanism in /etc/crontab, it's there to drive other ones.

thornsoft wrote:

Along that line, should something like this job (or my babysit_commflag.sh) be run as mythtv instead of root?

Thank you for posting both your "babysitting" scripts. The mythbackend went down on me yesterday during heavy recording (Utilizing both tuners of my PVR-500). This was before I installed the script. I installed both of them in the regular crontab (not system) and they are both working great. I was not having any issues with the commflag hitting on performance (I think since my Opteron is dual core) but I though it would be helpful when I start playing back HD content.

Since activating the babysitter script, I have watched the file /var/log/mythtv/babysit_backend.log and it remains empty.
Does that mean that my backend has not needed restarting? I got the impression that the backend was comming disconnected for everyone with R5E50 and this log would slowly fill up with entries?

Since activating the babysitter script, I have watched the file /var/log/mythtv/babysit_backend.log and it remains empty. Does that mean that my backend has not needed restarting? I got the impression that the backend was comming disconnected for everyone with R5E50 and this log would slowly fill up with entries?

Test it by killing the backend with Alt+2 and it should re-start within a minute.

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